Concrete is a composite material including coarse granular materials such as sands and stones embedded in a hard matrix of materials such as hydrated cements. Concrete production is performed by mixing these ingredients with water to make a fluid concrete. Typically, the fluid concrete is transported and put in place before it is hardened.
After the ingredients are mixed with water, the fluid concrete is continuously mixed during transportation by a mixer truck in order to maintain a quality of the concrete. However, there is no way to monitor the quality of the transported fluid concrete in real time. In addition, there is no way, in real time, of knowing the location where, in a given project, the fluid concrete is poured and what its mixture proportions and physical properties are at that location. Nor is it possible to track the progress of a poured volume, automatically and in real time in order to achieve better economics and improved construction efficiency.
After the fluid concrete is poured at an intended location, the concrete and the concrete construction industries generally use compression strength and other destructive tests to determine the quality of concrete placed at various projects in accordance to different engineering and mix design specifications. In most instances, the strength of the concrete is specified to reach certain strength at a curing age of 28 days. This is because the needed hardening or curing time for concrete is traditionally considered to be 28 days. Accordingly, in this day of instantaneous information and communications, the concrete industry still waits 28 days before knowing concrete quality.
Project management systems, including project management software applications, are widely used to facilitate the completion of large projects such as construction projects, the construction of an airplane, etc. The development of a new product, whether tangible or intangible (such as a new service) is often mapped out in a project, which sets out an anticipated timeline for taking the product or service from concept through final implementation, distribution or production. Such projects may be phenomenally complex at their inception or may become so during the lifetime thereof. One important element of project management is the generation and maintenance of a schedule of activities or tasks. Software tools exist that help project managers define the project and an anticipated project schedule.